Dressed up in Faded Costumes

I was wide awake when Garrett started to pull up onto a hotel parking lot.
“Whoa, Garrett,” I said with my voice a bit hoarse. “How are we going to pay for this?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yea, it’s no problem,” he smiled. “Wake ‘em up; come on.”
I kissed Liam on the cheek and that alone could wake him up with a smile. I slowly moved on to waking Leila up and then the lovebirds beside her. Matt was the last to be woken up.
“Where are we?” Matt asked.
“Welcome to Sacramento,” Garrett said while he was unloading some stuff from the trunk.
My new slippers were dying to get a taste of land, and so I jumped off the van after Leila did and stretched my arms up high. Liam got out of the van and after him were Maria and Alex. We locked up the car and walked to the lobby; each of us having our own bag or suitcase to drag along.
Garrett got a suite for us 7, with 2 rooms and 5 beds. It was all that was available at the time.
When we got up to suite, we were trying to figure out who-sleeps-where while admiring the suite itself. The seven of us sat on the couch, all sleepy and tired from the trip, and tried to discuss.
“Three girls, four guys, two rooms, five beds,” Alex said.
“Can I just say that all the beds can fit two people each?” Leila yawned.
“So are you saying we share beds?” Garrett asked.
I kept a laugh in. Garrett was asking Leila to share beds…
“Wait, I’m saying that we girls should have a bed each and you guys share the beds left.” Leila said with a smirk.
“I’m good on the sofa as long as I get to sleep,” I said.
“I’m on Elle’s side,” Maria said.
“Whoever, whichever,” Matt said.
In the end, no one slept in any of the rooms. We took a shower one by one and wore comfy jammies. Our sleepiness was slightly intruded by the cold water so all of us gathered one more time in the living room part of our suite and ordered some room service for a little din-din. In our places after eating—Liam on the couch with me beside him, Leila sitting on the floor with Garrett across her, Maria beside Alex on the other couch, and Matt beside Alex—we all fell asleep.
It was the first time we spent the night in a hotel together, and none of us used a bed.
I was the first to wake up the next day. I was wrapped in Liam’s arms as he was lightly snoring. I stood up; careful I didn’t wake up anybody, and went to the bathroom to wash my face. I gave out a big yawn and went on to brush my teeth. As I was walking around, I came to notice that Leila now had a blanket that covered her and Garrett that came along with it.
I looked at the clock—it was almost 12—and woke Liam and Matt up. I changed my clothes, got my laptop and waited for the two to get ready.
“Hey,” Liam said as he walked from behind me. “How’d you sleep?”
“Good,” I smiled.
“Can you help me wake them up?” Liam said. “Let’s tell ‘em to sleep in the beds before they all get stiff necks.”
I stood up and went to Garrett who was hugging Leila.
“Garrett,” I said shaking him up a bit. “Garrett.”
“Hmm?” he said as he swung his arm up from his hug as if he wasn’t already caught. “What?”
“The beds are free,” I said smiling.
He nodded at me and I went on to waking Leila up; who was a much heavier sleeper than Maria and Alex.
“Leila,” I said. “Wake up…”
Garrett stood up and stretched his arms and said, “Let me handle that.”
He carried Leila into one of the rooms and I followed. He laid her down on one bed and covered her with a blanket. Garrett walked to the kitchen like nothing happened. Maria and Alex on the other hand seemed to come at a buy-one-get-one value. They were inseparable during most of the trip. When Liam woke them up, the two stood up at the same time, walked to the room where Leila was, and slept on the bed beside hers.
After all that, Liam, Matt and I went on to a Starbucks close by to meet with Lisa and her older sister Caitlyn.
“Hey,” a girl said as she approached us. “I’m Lisa!”
“Hello!” I stood up to give both her and her sister a hug. “This is Liam and Matt. We’ll be the ones playing for you on your 16th birthday.”
They sat down with us and we ended up with a setlist like this:

Jar of Hearts-Michelle
Give it to me-(The Maine) Summer’s Mistake
Get up-(Mayday Parade) Summer’s Mistake
Jasey Rae-(All Time Low) Summer’s Mistake

And that was it. It was a short setlist, but we couldn’t have asked for more. It was good enough for us that we had a chance to play in front of a sure-crowd. It was our first gig… and first gigs last until the end.
“This is going to be our first gig, you know,” Matt said.
“Yea, and we are super grateful for trusting us. I mean, you haven’t even seen us really perform yet; even via videos.”
“I like spotting talent,” Lisa smiled. “I’m not super rich to give everybody a chance, but I really like talent with a story behind them.”
I couldn’t say anything and I just smiled.
“Thank you very much,” Matt said.
“No problem,” they stood up and gave each one of us a hug. “I trust you guys!”
They walked away and out of the shop as we stayed in our place with quivering bodies. We were all shaking with excitement as we had just confirmed our starter.

It was the day of the party. It was 9am, and I probably was too excited. I was on the couch with a cup of coffee, looking down on the streets of busy Sacramento. I was the only one awake that morning, and was kinda enjoying the ‘thinking’ time.
Somebody put a hand on my shoulder suddenly, and made me spill just a few drops of coffee onto the couch.
“Oh, sorry,” Alex said with a little simper.
“S’okay,” I said smiling back. “Is anyone else awake?”
“I don’t think so…”
“Were you as giddy as I am now when you had your first gig?” I asked him.
He sat down beside me and told me with a huge smile, “Probably so.”
“When we come to the party later, hide yourself, ‘kay?”
“Why?”
“I want to at least give a surprise to Lisa,” I said as he smiled. “After all, she took a chance on hiring a band as awkward as ours.”
It was a quarter after 6 and all of us were in the party mood. Everyone was dressed for the Sweet Sixteen and everything was set. We all went to the party and entered the backdoor, and were greeted by Lisa’s mother as we walked.
“Oh, you’re here!” she said. “You’ll be performing a little bit later on.”
“Oh, thank you,” I said as she disappeared in the crowd we were about to mix in.
We walked around and found Lisa beside the stage and greeted her.
“Lisa,” I called. “Happy birthday!”
“You’re just in time,” she said coming closer to hug me and whispering in my ear. “I’m about to introduce you.”
And with those words, I started to become nervous. I gave in a huge inhale and an exhale that matched up to it. I was about to perform in front of a crowd for the first time. Lisa rushed up the stage and made the crowd hush.
“Hey, everyone!” she said. “You guys all know that Ellie McAdams—“ didn’t know where the nickname came from, “—has been a huge YouTube sensation in our school, so I brought her here! I want to take things slow for a while, and I’d like everyone to give a warm welcome to my special guest, who’ll be singing a few songs for us, Summer’s Mistake!”
At first, almost no one clapped—maybe because of the different name, but when I walked up the stage with Liam and Matt, everybody was kind enough to give us a nice big applause. Lisa handed me the microphone with a smile and the second I looked at the crowd, was the moment I realized that I was born for this.
“Hey, everyone,” I said. “I’m Michelle, and I’ll be singing ‘Jar of Hearts’ with Liam Montgomery on the guitar and Matt Ward on the Cajon. Hope you guys like this.”
I was a bit awkward as I spoke and a bit shaky as I stood, but after I had said my short intro, everyone clapped and cheered as Liam started to play a little intro he improvised.
Everyone grabbed a partner as I started to sing and I watched them dance with their boyfriends and girlfriends, and friends they had with them. When I finished, and I had a proud smile on my face, everybody had given me a nice ovation. I was happy.
I signaled Liam and Matt to get ready. Both of them stood up and Liam got an electric guitar which was waiting beside him and Matt sat down behind the drums.
“Are you guys okay if I play a little ‘The Maine’?” I asked as I got a guitar for myself as well.
The crowd roared to life as Liam started to play a prolonged intro of ‘Give it to Me’ as he improvised playing the bass parts as well at the same time. It made me happy that I was performing in front of a real crowd. It made me happier that the crowd was loving how we played. They were actually cooperating unlike my hair every single morning.
When we finished playing that song, I took a bottle of water from Lisa.
“You’re amazing!” she told me.
“Thank you,” I smiled as I panted. I threw Liam my bottle so he too could drink and threw another bottle to Matt as well.
I was standing in the middle of the stage soaking in the moment and getting ready for the next song.
“Wow,” I said on the microphone. “Just to let you guys know, this is our first ever gig and you guys—“
The crowd screamed.
“—you guys are just breathtaking!” I said. “This is amazing,” I smiled at Liam.
“I love you!” a guy shouted from the crowd.
“Oh,” I blushed. “Well then, I love you too!”
A group was screaming from the back and the crowd was amazing still.
“This next song is one of my favorite songs,” I announced. “This song is called ‘Get Up’.”
The audience participated with every clap and every word. After I finished ‘Get Up’ I knew I had to give way to somebody for the spotlight. It was quite enough for me that I was doing what I loved.
“I gotta tell you, before we started, I was fucking nervous,” I admitted to the crowd. “And before we start on our last song, I’d like to call out Lisa up the stage and come here with us. Lisa?” I said as I looked her from the stage.
She rushed up the stage very confused, but smiling as she probably knew she had a surprise coming up her way.
“I came to your party without handing over a gift,” I said. “Very inappropriate of me.”
“You’re a guest; it doesn’t matter whether you give me anything or not. It’s okay!” she told me with a smile.
“Well, on behalf of ‘Summer’s Mistake’, I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to play here for our first gig, without even seeing us rehearse or even see a video of us playing together; for taking chances. You are an amazing person, Lisa. We hope you continue finding more talented people.”
“Thank you,” she smiled while wiping a tear from her eye.
“For our last song, and for our surprise, I’d like to call out Alex Gaskarth of ‘All Time Low’, to sing Jasey Rae!”
She shook as if she would fall as I held her up. She was smiling and very surprised as Alex came walking to the stage and hugged her. I took a bass guitar and gave Alex the guitar I was using.
“Are you guys ready for a little of me?” Alex shouted, and the crowd went wild; especially the girls… no surprise there.
He went over to Liam to whisper a few things and told me that I should just follow and make up stuff along the way as if we were just back in the studio jamming about anything.
Intro… “The lights out, I still hear the rain…”
Alex sang beautifully and made the audience sing with him.

After performing and having left the stage, Lisa had invited us backstage to tell us a few things. Leila, Maria, Garrett and Alex stayed in the party while we were with Lisa.
“Thank you guys so, very much,” she said. “I wanted to hand this over personally.” She handed Matt an envelope with ‘PAYMENT’ written on it. “And I want you guys to put it to good use.”
“Thank you so much,” I said. “This has been an amazing experience.”
“Promise me one thing?” Lisa said.
“What’s that?”
“Promise me that you won’t forget me when you guys go big,” she smiled.
We all smiled.
“Promise,” Liam said with a smile.
It was twelve midnight by the time we got back to the hotel where we were all smiles. Maria was proud of her Alex and of us after we had done a great job with the gig. Matt, Liam and I were still living the moment while we couldn’t stop talking about what happened. If you’re wondering about what ever happened between Leila and Garrett, so were we. They seemed to become the best of friends since the party, and the minute we got back to the hotel, both of them raced each other up to the room and we saw them already laughing when we got there a minute later.
We took our showers and changed into comfortable home clothes and some of us went to sleep.
“You know,” Matt said as the three of us—Matt, Liam and I—were in one bedroom just talking to each other and still in that surreal moment. “I’ve never seen Garrett act like that with anybody.”
“Like what?” I asked as I swallowed down a muffin I found in the fridge.
“Like he does around Leila,” he smiled. “I mean, he’s always been my closest brother and I’ve always known that he had that kid side to him, but most of the time he’s the shy kind around people like me.”
“And Liam,” I added, still chewing my muffin.
Liam smiled and play-pushed me as Matt laughed at us.
“Let’s talk about the pay,” I said. “Split it three ways? Alex said he was fine without a share.”
“Three ways? Nah, I’m good. You guys should split it,” Matt smiled. “How much is it anyway?”
We opened the envelope to see that it had one thousand five hundred dollars in it.
I was shocked that Lisa would pay that much. “Are you sure, Matt?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
I looked at Liam who was smiling at me the same. “50-50?” I smiled.
“Take it.”
My eyes were tearing up and I tried to hide it from the guys and wiped my eyes with my jacket. I smiled at both of them who seemed to have a plan behind everything; it was as if they planned to give me the money in the first place. I quickly thought of a topic to take the eyes off me and to take off the awkward moment.
“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Matt?” I asked.
“Me?” Matt asked, surprised of the sudden question. “Nah.”
“Why?” I asked a bit baffled why. “I mean, you’re nice—probably even good looking once you look past your huge nose.”
“Hey, I do NOT have a huge nose!”
I laughed as Liam stayed smiling at us.
“Hope mom and dad would be proud of me…” Matt said as he laid his head back on the headboard of the bed and the mood changed.
Smiles turned into sudden awkward ones and I realized Liam looking at me with a face that knew there was something wrong with the things I was thinking about.
“Hey,” Liam said in a low, comforting tone.
“I hope my grandpop can see me,” I said as I tried to smile.